_THE REVOLT OF JEHU_
B.C. 842
2 KINGS ix. 1-37
"Te semper anteit sæva Necessitas
Clavos trabales et cuneos manu,
Gestans ahenâ."
HORAT., _Od._, I. xxxv. 17.
A long period had elapsed since Elijah had received the triple
commission which was to mark the close of his career. Two of those
Divine behests had now been accomplished. He had anointed Elisha, son
of Shaphat, of Abel-Meholah, to be prophet in his room;[149] and
Elisha had anointed Hazael to be king over Syria;[150] the third and
more dangerous commission, involving nothing less than the overthrow
of the mighty dynasty of Omri, remained still unaccomplished.
If the name of Jehu ("Jehovah is He")[151] had been actually mentioned
to Elijah, the dreadful secret must have remained buried in the breast
of the prophet and in that of his successor for many years. Further,
Jehu was yet a very young man, and to have marked him out as the
founder of a dynasty would have been to doom him to certain
destruction. An Eastern king, whose family has once securely seated
itself on the throne, is hedged round with an awful divinity, and
demands an unquestioning obedience. Elijah had been removed from earth
before this task had been fulfilled, and Elisha had to wait for his
opportunity. But the doom was passed, though the judgment was belated.
The sons of Ahab were left a space to repent, or to fill to the brim
the cup of their father's iniquities.
"The sword of Heaven is not in haste to smite,
Nor yet doth linger."
Ahaziah, Ahab's eldest son, after a reign of one year, marked only by
crimes and misfortunes, had ended in overwhelming disaster his
deplorable career. His brother Jehoram had succeeded him, and had now
been on the throne for at least twelve years, which had been chiefly
signalised by that unsuccessful attempt to recover the territory of
revolted Moab, to which we owe the celebrated Stone of Mesha. We have
already narrated the result of the campaign which had so many
vicissitudes. The combined armies of Israel, Judah, and Edom had been
delivered by the interposition of Elisha from perishing of thirst
beside the scorched-up bed of the Wady-el-Ahsy; and availing
themselves of the rash assault of the Moabites, had swept everything
before them. But Moab stood at bay at Kir-Haraseth (Kerak), his
strongest fortress, six miles from Ar or Rabbah, and ten miles east of
the southern end of the Dead Sea. It stood three thousand feet above
the level of the sea, and is defended by a network of steep valleys.
Nevertheless, Israel would have subdued it, but for the act of
horrible despair to which the King of Moab resorted in his extremity,
by offering up his eldest son as a burnt-offering to Chemosh upon the
wall of the city. Horror-stricken by the catastrophe, and terrified
with the dread that the vengeance of Chemosh could not but be aroused
by so tremendous a sacrifice, the besieging host had retired. From
that moment Moab had not only been free, but assumed the _rôle_ of an
aggressor, and sent her marauding bands to harry and carry the farms
and homesteads of her former conqueror.[152]
Then followed the aggressions of Benhadad which had been frustrated by
the insight of Elisha, and which owed their temporary cessation to his
generosity.[153] The reappearance of the Syrians in the field had
reduced Samaria to the lowest depths of ghastly famine. But the day of
the guilty city had not yet come, and a sudden panic, caused among the
invaders by a rumoured assault of Hittites and Egyptians, had saved
her from destruction.[154] Taking advantage of the respite caused by
the change of the Syrian dynasty, and pressing on his advantage,
Jehoram, with the aid of his Judæan nephew, had once more got
possession of Ramoth-Gilead before Hazael was secure on the throne
which he had usurped.
This then was the situation:--The allied and kindred kings of Israel
and Judah were idling in the pomp of hospitality at Jezreel; their
armies were encamped about Ramoth-Gilead; and at the head of the host
of Israel was the crafty and vehement grandson of Nimshi.
Elisha saw and seized his opportunity. The day of vengeance from the
Lord had dawned. Things had not materially altered since the days of
Ahab. If Jehovah was nominally worshipped, if the very names of the
kings of Israel bore witness to His supremacy,[155] Baal was
worshipped too. The curse which Elijah had pronounced against Ahab and
his house remained unfulfilled. The credit of prophecy was at stake.
The blood of Naboth and his slaughtered sons cried to the Lord from
the ground; and hitherto it seemed to have cried in vain. If the
_Nebiîm_ (the prophetic class) were to have their due weight in
Israel, the hour had come, and the man was ready.
The light which falls on Elisha is dim and intermittent. His name is
surrounded by a halo of nebulous wonders, of which many are of a
private and personal character. But he was a known enemy of Ahab and
his house. He had, indeed, more than once interposed to snatch them
from ruin, as in the expedition against Moab, and in the awful straits
of the siege of Samaria by the Syrians. But his person had none the
less been hateful to the sons of Jezebel, and his life had been
endangered by their bursts of sudden fury. He could hardly again have
a chance so favourable as that which now offered itself, when the
armed host was at one place and the king at another. Perhaps, too, he
may have been made aware that the soldiers were not well pleased to
find at their head a king who was so far a _fainéant_ as to leave them
exposed to a powerful enemy, and show no eagerness to return. His
"urgent private affairs" were not so urgent as to entitle him to take
his ease at luxurious Jezreel.
Where Elisha was at the time we do not know--perhaps at Dothan,
perhaps at Samaria. Suddenly he called to him a youth--one of the Sons
of the Prophets, on whose speed and courage he could rely--placed in
his hands a vial of the consecrated anointing oil,[156] told him to
gird up his loins,[157] and to speed across the Jordan to
Ramoth-Gilead. When he arrived, he was to bid Jehu rise up from the
company of his fellow-captains to hurry him into "a chamber within a
chamber,"[158] to shut the door for secrecy, to pour the consecrating
oil upon his head, to anoint him King of Israel in the name of
Jehovah, and then to fly without a moment's delay.[159]
The messenger--the Rabbis guess that he was Jonah, the son of
Amittai[160]--knew well that his was a service of immense peril, in
which his life might easily pay the forfeit of his temerity. How was
he to guess that at once, without striking a blow, the host of Israel
would fling to the winds its sworn allegiance to the son of the
warrior Ahab, the fourth monarch of the powerful dynasty of Omri?
Might not any one of a thousand possible accidents thwart a conspiracy
of which the success depended on the unflinching courage and
promptitude of his single hand?
He was but a youth, but he was the trained pupil of a master who had,
again and again, stood before kings, and not been afraid. He sprang
from a community which inherited the splendid traditions of the
Prophet of Flame.
He did not hesitate a moment. He tightened the camel's hide round his
naked limbs, flung back the long dark locks of the Nazarite, and sped
upon his way. A true son of the schools of Jehovah's prophets has, and
can have, no fear of man. The armies of Israel and Judah saw the wild,
flying figure of a young man, with his hairy garment and streaming
locks, rush through the camp. Whatever might be their surmisings, he
brooked no questions. Availing himself of the awe with which the
shadow of Elijah had covered the sacrosanct person of a prophetic
messenger, he made his way straight to the war-council of the
captains; and brushing aside every attempt to impede his progress with
the plea that he was the bearer of Jehovah's message, he burst into
the council of the astonished warriors, who were assembled in the
private courtyard of a house in the fortress-town.[161]
He knew the fame of Jehu, but did not know his person, and dared not
waste time. "I have an errand to thee, O captain," he said to the
assembly generally. The message had been addressed to no one in
particular, and Jehu naturally asked, "Unto which of all of us?" With
the same swift intuition which has often enabled men in similar
circumstances to recognise a leader--as Josephus recognised Vespasian,
and St. Severinus recognised Odoacer, and Joan of Arc recognised
Charles VI. of France--he at once replied, "To thee, O captain." Jehu
did not hesitate a moment. Prophets had shown, many a time, that their
messages might not be neglected or despised. He rose, and followed the
youth, who led him into the most secret recess of the house, and
there, emptying on his head the fragrant oil of consecration, said,
"Thus saith Jehovah, God of Israel, I have anointed thee king over
the people of Jehovah, even over Israel."[162] He was to smite the
house of his master Ahab in vengeance for the blood of Jehovah's
prophets and servants whom Jezebel had murdered. Ahab's house, every
male of it, young and old, bond and free,[163] is doomed to perish, as
the houses of Jeroboam and of Baasha had perished before them, by a
bloody end. Further, the dogs should eat Jezebel by the rampart of
Jezreel,[164] and there should be none to bury her.
One moment sufficed for his daring deed, for his burning message; the
next he had flung open the door and fled. The soldiers of the camp must
have whispered still more anxiously together as they saw the same
agitated youth rushing through their lines with the same impetuosity
which had marked his entrance. In those dark days the sudden appearance
of a prophet was usually the herald of some terrific storm.[165]
Jehu was utterly taken by surprise; but according to the reading
preserved by Ephraem Syrus in 2 Kings ix. 26, he had on the previous
night seen in a dream the blood of Naboth and his sons. If the thought
of revolt had ever passed for a moment through his mind, it had never
assumed a definite shape. True, he had been a warrior from his youth.
True, he had been one of Ahab's bodyguard, and had ridden before him
in a chariot at least twenty years earlier, and had now risen by
valour and capacity to the high station of captain of the host. True,
also, that he had heard the great curse which Elijah had pronounced on
Ahab at the door of Naboth's vineyard; but he heard it while he was
yet an obscure youth, and he had little dreamed that his was the hand
which should carry it into execution. Who was he? And had not the
house of Omri been, in some sense, sanctioned by Heaven? And were not
the words of the prophet "wild and wandering cries," of which the
issues might be averted by such a repentance as that of Ahab?
And he felt another misgiving. Might not this scene be the plot of
some secret enemy? Might it not at any rate be a reckless jest palmed
upon him by his comrades? If any jealous member of the confederacy of
captains betrayed the fact that Jehu had tampered with their
allegiance, would his head be safe for a single hour? He would act
warily. He came back to his fellow-captains and said nothing.
But they were burning with curiosity. Something must be impending.
Prophets did not rush in thus tumultuously for no purpose. Must not
the youth's mantle of hair be some standard of war?
"Is all right?" they shouted. "Why did this frantic fellow come to
thee?"[166]
"You know all about it," answered Jehu, with wary coolness. "You know
more about it than I do. You know the man, and what his talk was."
"Lies!" bluntly answered the rough soldiers.[167] "Tell us now."
Then Jehu's eye took measure of them and their feelings. A judge of
men and of men's countenances, he saw conspiracy flashing in their
faces. He saw that they suspected the true state of things, and were
on fire to carry it out. Perhaps they had caught sight of the vial of
oil under the youth's scant dress. Could any quickened observation at
least fail to notice that the soldier's dark locks were shining and
fragrant, as they had not been a moment ago, with consecrated oil?
Then Jehu frankly told them the perilous secret. Thus and thus had the
young prophet spoken, and had said, "Thus saith Jehovah, I have
anointed thee king over Israel."
The message was met with a shout of answering approbation. That shout
was the death-knell of the house of Omri. It showed that the reigning
dynasty had utterly forfeited its popularity. No luck had followed the
sons of Naboth's murderer. Israel was weary of their mother Jezebel.
Why was this king Jehoram, this king of evil auspices, who had been
repudiated by Moab and harried by Syria--why, in the first gleam of
possible prosperity, was he being detained at Jezreel by wounds which
rumour said were already sufficiently healed to allow him to return to
his post? Down with the seed of the murderer and the sorceress! Let
brave Jehu be king, as Jehovah has said!
So the captains sprang to their feet, and then and there seized Jehu,
and carried him in triumph to the top of the stairs which ran round
the inside of the courtyard, and stripped off their mantles to
extemporise for him the semblance of a cushioned throne.[168] Then in
the presence of such soldiers as they could trust they blew a sudden
blast of the ram's horn, and shouted, "Jehu is king!"
Jehu was not the man to let the grass grow under his feet. Nothing
tries a man's vigour and nerve so surely as a sudden crisis. It is
this swift resolution which has raised many a man to the throne, as it
raised Otho, and Napoleon I. and Napoleon III. The history of Israel
is specially full of _coups d'état_, but no one of them is half so
decisive or overwhelming as this. Jehu instantly accepted the office
of Jehovah's avenger on the house of Ahab.[169] Everything, as Jehu
saw, depended on the suddenness and fury with which the blow was
delivered. "If you want me to be your king,"[170] he said, "keep the
lines secure, and guard the fortress walls. I will be my own messenger
to Jehoram. Let no deserter go forth to give him warning."[171]
It was agreed; and Jehu, only taking with him Bidkar, his
fellow-officer, and a small band of followers, set forth at full speed
from Ramoth-Gilead.
The fortress of Ramoth, now the important town of Es-Salt, a place
which must always have been the key of Gilead, was built on the
summit of a rocky headland, fortified by nature as well as by art. It
is south of the river Jabbok, and lies at the head of the only easy
road which runs down westward to the Jordan and eastward to the rich
plateau of the interior.[172] Crossing the fords of the Jordan, Jehu
would soon be able to join the main road, which, passing Tirzah,
Zaretan, and Beth-shean, and sweeping eastward of Mount Gilboa, gives
ready access to Jezreel.
The watchman on the lofty watchtower of the summer palace caught sight
of a storm of dust careering along from the eastward up the valley
towards the city.[173] The times were wild and troublous. What could
it be? He shouted his alarm, "I see a troop!" The tidings were
startling, and the king was instantly informed that chariots and
horsemen were approaching the royal city. "Send a horseman to meet
them," he said, "with the message, 'Is all well?'"
Forth flew the rider, and cried to the rushing escort, "The king asks,
'Is all well? Is it peace?'" For probably the anxious city hoped that
there might have been some victory of the army against Hazael, which
would fill them with joy.
"What hast thou to do with peace? Turn thee behind me," answered Jehu;
and perforce the horseman, whatever may have been his conjectures, had
to follow in the rear.
"He reached them," cried the sentry on the watchtower, "but he does
not return."
The news was enigmatical and alarming; and the troubled king sent
another horseman. Again the same colloquy occurred, and again the
watchman gave the ominous message, adding to it the yet more
perplexing news that, in the mad and headlong driving[174] of the
charioteer, he recognises the driving of Jehu, the son of Nimshi.[175]
What had happened to his army? Why should the captain of the host be
driving thus furiously to Jezreel?
Matters were evidently very critical, whatever the swift approach of
chariots and horsemen might portend. "Yoke my chariot," said Jehoram;
and his nephew Ahaziah, who had shared his campaign, and was no less
consumed with anxiety to learn tidings which could not but be
pressing, rode by him in another chariot to meet Jehu. They took with
them no escort worth mentioning. The rebellion was not only sudden,
but wholly unexpected.
The two kings met Jehu in a spot of the darkest omen. It was the plot
of ground which had once been the vineyard of Naboth, at the door of
which Ahab had heard from Elijah the awful message of his doom. As the
New Forest was ominous to our early Norman kings as the witness of
their cruelties and encroachments, so was this spot to the house of
Omri, though it was adjacent to their ivory palace, and had been
transformed from a vineyard into a garden or pleasance.
"Is it peace, Jehu?" shouted the agitated king; by which probably he
only meant to ask, "Is all going well in the army at Ramoth?"
The fierce answer which burst from the lips of his general fatally
undeceived him. "What peace," brutally answered the rebel, "so long as
the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many?"
She, after all, was the _fons et origo mali_ to the house of Jehoram.
Hers was the dark spirit of murder and idolatry which had walked in that
house. She was the instigator and the executer of the crime against
Naboth. She had been the foundress of Baal- and Asherah-worship; she was
the murderess of the prophets; she had been specially marked out for
vengeance in the doom pronounced both by Elijah and Elisha.
The answer was unmistakable. This was a revolt, a revolution.
"Treachery, Ahaziah!" shouted the terrified king, and instantly wheeled
round his chariot to flee.[176] But not so swiftly as to escape the
Nemesis which had been stealing upon him with leaden feet, but now smote
him irretrievably with iron hand. Without an instant's hesitation, Jehu
snatched his bow from his attendant charioteer, "filled his hands with
it," and from its full stretch and resonant string sped the arrow, which
smote Jehoram in the back with fatal force, and passed through his
heart.[177] Without a word the unhappy king sank down upon his
knees[178] in his chariot, and fell face forward, dead.
"Take him up," cried Jehu to Bidkar,[179] "and fling him down where he
is,--here in this portion of the field of Naboth the Jezreelite. Here,
years ago, you and I, as we rode behind Ahab,[180] heard Elijah utter
his oracle on this man's father, that vengeance should meet him here.
Where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth and his sons, let dogs lick
the blood of the son of Ahab."[181]
But Jehu was not the man to let the king's murder stay his
chariot-wheels when more work had yet to be done. Ahaziah of Judah,
too, belonged to Ahab's house, for he was Ahab's grandson, and
Jehoram's nephew and ally. Without stopping to mourn or avenge the
tragedy of his uncle's murder, Ahaziah fled towards Bethgan or
Engannim,[182] the fountain of gardens, south of Jezreel, on the road
to Samaria and Jerusalem. Jehu gave the laconic order, "Smite him
also";[183] but fright added wings to the speed of the hapless King of
Judah. His chariot-steeds were royal steeds, and were fresh; those of
Jehu were spent with the long, fierce drive from Ramoth. He got as far
as the ascent of Gur before he was overtaken.[184] There, not far from
Ibleam, the rocky hill impeded his flight, and he was wounded by the
pursuers. But he managed to struggle onwards to Megiddo, on the south
of the plain of Jezreel, and there he hid himself.[185] He was
discovered, dragged out, and slain. Even Jehu's fierce emissaries did
not make war on dead bodies, any more than Hannibal did, or Charles V.
They left such meanness to Jehu himself, and to our Charles II. They
did not interfere with the dead king's remains. His servants carried
them to Jerusalem, and there he was buried with his fathers in the
sepulchre of the kings, in the city of David. As there was nothing
more to tell about him, the historian omits the usual formula about
the rest of the acts of Ahaziah, and all that he did. His death
illustrates the proverb _Mitgegangen mitgefangen_: he was the comrade
of evil men, and he perished with them.
Jehu speedily reached Jezreel, but the interposition of Jehoram and
the orders for the pursuit of Ahaziah had caused a brief delay, and
Jezebel had already been made aware that her doom was imminent.
Not even the sudden and dreadful death of her son, and the nearness of
her own fate, daunted the steely heart of the Tyrian sorceress. If she
was to die, she would meet death like a queen. As though for some
Court banquet, she painted her eyelashes and eyebrows with antimony,
to make her eyes look large and lustrous,[186] and put on her jewelled
head-dress.[187] Then she mounted the palace tower, and, looking down
through the lattice above the city gate, watched the thundering
advance of Jehu's chariot, and hailed the triumphant usurper with the
bitterest insult she could devise. She knew that Omri, her husband's
father, had taken swift vengeance on the guilt of the usurper Zimri,
who had been forced to burn himself in the harem at Tirzah after one
month's troubled reign. Her shrill voice was heard above the roar of
the chariot-wheels in the ominous taunt,--
"Is it peace, thou Zimri, thou murderer of thy master?"[188]
No!--She meant, "There is no peace for thee nor thine, any more than for
me or mine! Thou mayest murder us; but thee too, thy doom awaiteth!"
Stung by the ill-omened words, Jehu looked up at her and shouted,--
"Who is on my side? Who?"
The palace was apparently rife with traitors. Ahab had been the first
polygamist among the kings of Israel, and therefore the first also to
introduce the odious atrocity of eunuchs. Those hapless wretches, the
portents of Eastern seraglios, the disgrace of humanity, are almost
always the retributive enemies of the societies of which they are the
helpless victims. Fidelity or gratitude are rarely to be looked for
from natures warped into malignity by the ruthless misdoing of men.
Nor was the nature of Jezebel one to inspire affection. One or two
eunuchs[189] immediately thrust out of the windows their bloated and
beardless faces. "Fling her down!" Jehu shouted. Down they flung the
wretched queen (has any queen ever died a death so shamelessly
ignominious?), and her blood spirted upon the wall, and on the horses.
Jehu, who had only stopped for an instant in his headlong rush, drove
his horses over her corpse,[190] and entered the gate of her capital
with his wheels crimson with her blood. History records scarcely
another instance of such a scene, except when Tullia, a century later,
drove her chariot over the dead body of her father Servius Tullius in
the _Vicus Sceleratus_ of ancient Rome.[191]
But what cared Jehu? Many a conqueror ere now has sat down to the
dinner prepared for his enemy; and the obsequious household of the
dead tyrants, ready to do the bidding of their new lord, ushered the
hungry man to the banquet provided for the kings whom he had slain. No
man dreamt of uttering a wail; no man thought of raising a finger for
dead Jehoram or for dead Jezebel, though they had all been under _her_
sway for at least five-and-thirty years. "The wicked perish, and no
man regardeth." "When the wicked perish, there is shouting."[192]
We may be startled at a revolution so sudden and so complete; yet it
is true to history. A tyrant or a cabal may oppress a nation for long
years. Their word may be thought absolute, their power irresistible.
Tyranny seems to paralyse the courage of resistance, like the fabled
head of Medusa. Remove its fascination of corruption, and men become
men, and not machines, once more. Jehu's daring woke Israel from the
lethargy which had made her tolerate the murders and enchantments of
this Baal-worshipping alien. In the same way in one week Robespierre
seemed to be an invincible autocrat; the next week his power had
crumbled into dust and ashes at a touch.
It was not until Jehu had sated his thirst and hunger after that wild
drive, which had ended in the murder of two kings and a queen and in
his sudden elevation to a throne, that it even occurred to this new
tiger-king to ask what had become of Jezebel. But when he had eaten
and drunk, he said, "Go, see now to this cursed woman, and bury her:
for she is a king's daughter." That she had been first Princess, then
Queen, then Gebîrah in Israel for nearly a full lifetime was nothing:
it was nothing to Jehu that she was a wife, and mother, and
grandmother of kings and queens both of Israel and Judah;--but she was
also the daughter of Ethbaal, the priest-king of Tyre and Sidon, and
therefore any shameful treatment of her remains might kindle trouble
from the region of Phœnicia.[193]
But no one had taken the trouble so much as to look after the corpse
of Jezebel. The populace of Jezreel were occupied with their new king.
Where Jezebel fell, there she had been suffered to lie; and no one,
apparently, cared even to despoil her of the royal robes, now
saturated with bloodshed. Flung from the palace-tower, her body had
fallen in the open space just outside the walls--what is called "the
mounds" of an Eastern city. In the strange carelessness of sanitation
which describes as "fate" even the visitation of an avoidable
pestilence, all sorts of offal are shot into this vacant space to
fester in the tropic heat. I myself have seen the pariah dogs and the
vultures feeding on a ghastly dead horse in a ruined space within the
street of Beit-Dejun; and the dogs and the vultures--"those national
undertakers"--had done their work unbidden on the corpse of the Tyrian
queen. When men went to bury her, they only found a few dog-mumbled
bones--the skull, and the feet, and the palms of the hands.[194] They
brought the news to Jehu as he rested after his feast. It did not by
any means discompose him. He at once recognised that another
levin-bolt had fallen from the thunder-crash of Elijah's prophecy, and
he troubled himself about the matter no further. Her carcase, as the
man of God had prophesied, had become as dung upon the face of the
field, so that none could say, "This is Jezebel."[195]
FOOTNOTES:
[149] 1 Kings xix. 15, 16.
[150] 2 Kings viii. 12, 13.
[151] The name was not uncommon, 1 Chron. ii. 38, iv. 35, xii. 3.
[152] 2 Kings xiii. 20, xxiv. 2; Jer. xlviii.
[153] 2 Kings vi. 8-23.
[154] 2 Kings vii. 6.
[155] Jehoram = Jehovah is exalted. Ahaziah = Jehovah holds.
[156] Vial (_pak_) only here and in 1 Sam. x. 1. "_The_ oil" (LXX.,
τὸν φακὸν τοῦ ἐλαίου).
[157] "His habit fit for speed _succinct_" (Milton).
[158] Inner chamber, 1 Kings xx. 30.
[159] Perhaps, if Elisha had gone in person, suspicion might have been
aroused. He was not more than fifty at this time, and lived
forty-three years more.
[160] _Seder Olam_, c. 18.
[161] It seems as though they were _inside_ the town to defend it, not
a beleaguring host outside.
[162] The expression is remarkable, as showing how completely the
prerogative of the Chosen People was supposed to rest with the Ten
Tribes, as the most important representatives of the seed of Abraham.
[163] "Him that is shut up, and him that is left at large in Israel"
(2 Kings ix. 8; 1 Kings xiv. 10, xvi. 3, 4).
[164] The A.V. has, less accurately, "in the _portion_ of Jezreel."
See 1 Kings xxi. 23. Heb., חֵלֶק. The חֵיל of an Eastern town is the
ditch and empty space--a sort of external _pomœrium_ around it. It is
the place of offal, and the haunt of vultures and pariah dogs.
[165] 1 Sam. xvi. 4: "Comest thou peaceably?"
[166] 2 Kings ix. 11, הַמְּשֻׁנָּצ LXX., ὁ ἑπίληπτος. Comp. ver. 20,
"he driveth _furiously_" (בְשִׁנָּצון).
[167] Ver. 12, a lie! (שֶׁקֶר).
[168] What is meant by the _gerem_ of the staircase is uncertain. The
word means "a bone" (Aquila, ὀστῶδες), and is, in this connection, an
ἅπαξ λεγόμενον. The Targum explains it as the top vane of a
stair-dial. The margin of the R.V. renders it "on the bare steps." The
Vulgate renders it _in similitudinem tribunalis_, as though _gerem_
meant _tselem_. The LXX. conceal their perplexity by simply
translating the word ἐπὶ τὸ γαρέμ. Grotius and Clericus, _in fastigio
graduum_. Symmachus, ἐπὶ μίαν τῶν ἀναβαθμίδων.
[169] 2 Kings ix. 14: "So Jehu _conspired_ against Joram." The same
word is used in 2 Chron. xxiv. 25, 26.
[170] 2 Kings ix. 15, R.V.: "If this be your mind."
[171] So far as we know, he never returned to Ramoth-Gilead, of which
indeed we hear no more.
[172] Tristram, _Land of Moab_.
[173] Heb., _Shiph'hath_, "a dust-storm" (LXX., κονιορτόν, αἰ. ὄχλον;
Vulg., _globum_), not as in A.V. and R.V., "a company." Comp. Isa. lx.
6; Ezek. xxvi. 10.
[174] Clearly the rendering "he driveth furiously" is right. The word
"furiously" is _beshigga'ôn_ (Vulg., _præceps_), and is connected with
"mad," ver. 11. LXX., ἐν παραλλαγῇ. Arab. Chald., "quietly." Josephus,
"leisurely, and in good order." Such an approach would not, however,
have been at all in accordance with the perilous urgency of his intent.
[175] Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, is named from his grandfather
Nimshi, who seems to have been the founder of the greatness of his
house.
[176] 2 Kings ix. 23: "Turned his hands." Comp. 1 Kings xxii. 34.
[177] Ver. 24. Vulg., _inter scapulas_.
[178] LXX., reading בּרְכָּיו צַל.
[179] Bidkar, perhaps Bar-dekar, "Son of stabbing." Comp. 1 Kings iv. 9.
[180] Heb., _ts'madim_, "in pairs"; LXX., ἐπιβεβηκότες ἐπὶ ζεύγη. It
is uncertain whether Jehu and Bidkar were in the same chariot as Ahab,
as Josephus says (καθεζομένους ὄπισθεν τοῦ ἅρματος), or in a separate
chariot.
[181] 2 Kings ix. 26: "Saith the Lord." Ephraem Syrus omits these
words. He says that the night before Jehu had seen the blood of Naboth
and his sons in a dream. Comp. Hom., _Od._, iii. 258: Τῷ κε οἱ οὐδὲ
θανόντι χυτὴν ἐπὶ γαῖαν ἔχευαν 'Αλλ' ἄρα τονγε κύνες τε καὶ οἰωνοὶ
κατέδαψαν Κείμενον ἐν πεδίῳ.
[182] A.V., "By the way of the garden-house." LXX., Βαιθγάν.
[183] The text is a little uncertain.
[184] Thenius supposes "Gur" to mean "a caravanserai." Comp. 2 Chron.
xxvi. 7, _Gur-Baal_; Vulg., _Hospitium Baalis_.
[185] The account of the Chronicler (2 Chron. xxii. 9) differs from
that of the earlier historian. It may, however, be (uncertainly)
reconciled with it as in the text, if we suppose the words "he was hid
in Samaria" to mean in Megiddo, in the territory of Samaria.
Obviously, however, the traditions varied. There are difficulties
about the story, for Ibleam is on the west towards Megiddo, and not
between Jezreel and Samaria.
[186] פּוּךְ, "Lead-glance." A mixture of pulverised antimony
(_stibium_) and zinc is still used by women in the East for this
purpose. _In calliblepharis dilatat oculos_ (Plin., _H. N._, xxxiii.).
Keren-Happuk, the name given by Job to one of his daughters, means
"horn of stibium." The object could hardly have been to _attract_ Jehu
(as Ephraem Syrus thinks), for Jezebel had already a _grandson_
twenty-three years old (viii. 26).
[187] A.V., "_Tired_ her head." Comp. _tiara_. Lit., "made good";
LXX., ἠγάθυνε.
[188] Josephus gives the sense very well: Καλὸς δοῦλος ὁ ἀποκτείνας
τὸν δεσπότην (_Antt._, IX. vi. 4). The same question might have been
addressed to Baasha, Shallum, Menahem, Pekah, and Hoshea; but at least
Jehu might plead a prophet's call.
[189] "Two or three." Lit., "two three," like the old English "two
three" for "several."
[190] Ver. 33. Heb., "He trod her underfoot." LXX., Συνεπάτησαν αὐτήν;
Vulg., _Conculcaverunt eam_.
[191] Liv., i. 46-48.
[192] Prov. xi. 10. Compare the remark of Voltaire, who saw "le peuple
ivré de vin et de joie de la mort de Louis XIV."
[193] 1 Kings xvi. 31. At this time Ethbaal was dead. He reigned
probably from B.C. 940-908, and died at the age of sixty-eight (Jos.,
_Antt._, VIII. xiii. 1, IX. vi. 6; _c. Ap._, i. 18).
[194] 1 Kings xxi. 23.
[195] Comp. Psalm lxxxiii. 10. Her name remained a by-word till the
latest days (Rev. ii. 20), and the Spanish Jews called their
persecutress Isabella the Catholic "Jezebel."